“Blessed are those who know that the work of the church is the transformation of society; who have a vision of Beloved Community transcending the present, and who do not shrink from controversy, sacrifice, or change.” [Responsive Reading #728, Singing the Living Tradition]
What a week! Anyone with savings, investments or a retirement fund or just trying to get a loan, felt the impact of a shrinking world economy. Many are anxiously worrying about what else is going to shrink, like their jobs... It seems pretty clear that we are heading for a long and frightening recession. Even if what is happening is just a market “correction”, we are all getting caught in it, not unlike an ocean “correcting” the shore line right where our beach house sits!
In the midst of all this turmoil...today is the day, set on our UU calendars some time ago, that we have been asked to join with hundreds of our sister UU congregations to celebrate Association Sunday. This is the second year that a particular Sunday has been selected for an association wide effort to raise funds over and above the amounts that most UU congregations regularly contribute, as we do, to the Annual Program Fund.
This year’s Association Sunday theme is “Growing Our Spirit”. Half of the funds that are collected during today’s services will be used for the creation of theological education materials to enhance spiritual deepening programs within our congregations. The other half will be spent on continuing theological education efforts to benefit our existing and would be religious professionals.
Some time ago, before anyone could have predicted just how anxious we all might be today, the UUA set as an expectation that each of us would give $50. For many of us $50 barely buys a tank of gas. Can we afford to forgo getting back and forth to work (while we still have a job), to school or to church to send the cost of a tank of gas to the UUA in an effort to “grow our spirit”?
You’ll have to decide that for yourselves... maybe you’ll choose to give $5...maybe you’ll decide you can give $500...
Whatever amount you decide to give, I suspect your generosity will be accompanied with a sense of sacrifice, with the knowledge that whatever you give to this appeal will mean you have less to give for something else. We are all going to have to learn to prioritize, to sort out the demands on our shrinking assets, to decide what comes first and what will have to wait for another day.
In the coming months, maybe even years, we are all going to have to make all kinds of choices
that involve sacrifice. I hear some say the “trickle down” theory of capitalism isn’t working. It’s working. We are all being affected by forces that seem way beyond our control. No matter who or what you blame for this mess, we are all in it, and we will all have to deal with it, one way or another!
We could let the mess we are in shrink our spirits. Some are frightened and desperate enough to be shouting words of hate, looking around for someone to blame.
There is no one person that caused this present mess. And there is no one person who is going to clean it up. It’s a natural, emotional reaction to look for a scapegoat, to drag them out and put the blame for everything that’s gone wrong on them.
Perhaps that reaction satisfies a shrunken spirit. But, it is not our way of coping with troubled times.
Our way is to use our wisdom to see that the mess we are in is about so much more than the economy. Thinking that there is some ONE to blame, (or even to kill) is a hateful reaction that shrinks the spirit and only shows just how stuck we are in the same old cycle of domination, exploitation, and violence that brought us to this present mess.
To transcend this present, we need way more than a market correction, we need the powerful vision of what Martin Luther King called the Beloved Community, of what our Universalist forebears called Heaven on Earth, what some are now calling Earth Community. What we need is to align ourselves with those who are welcoming in the sea change, the profound transformation that is already underway, those who know that the values of cooperation, equality and stewardship are so powerful they will make the next 5,000 years far different from what has been.
We are in a time of great crisis and incredible opportunity. What is going on is about more than the economy, more than politics, more than the environment. We can either shrink, or we can grow our spirit... deepening towards that which connects us to our truest selves and widening our association with others who share the same dream, the same vision for what can be.
This is certainly a time when we need theological education. We need a long view. We need a vision that helps us find the strains of that which deepens and re-directs our spirit. We need a vision that not only transcends this particular mess but guides our daily lives with principles that teach us how to live on this edge.
Those of us who have been in the adult religious education classes that just ended this past Wednesday night have been studying what the world may have been like long, long ago. In contrast to a society organized by the domination of some over others, there may have been a time when partnership prevailed, when resources and surpluses where shared for the good of all.
Did this time really exist? Maybe, maybe not. There are hints, that it did..revealed in what has been covered up...in the heresies we UU’s are so familiar with. Between the lines... a memory and a hope of something so different from what has been...a different way shunned by the dominant worldview that has controlled our imaginations for the last 5000 years...
We have seen images of the gods and goddesses from a pre-patriarchal time. These images reveal no weapons, no wars, no warriors...
Are we re-imagining the past to give credence to the future? Maybe. Rewriting history to suit the imagined future... Whatever works!
What’s clear is what hasn’t worked...what’s clear is that an imminent end time threat, the end of life as we know it, re-energizes both the visions of doom and the visions of renewal... It is time for ultimate theological questions... Where have we been? Where are we going? Who shall we be?
Many are coming to believe that the sexism, racism, economic injustice, violence and environmental destruction that has plagued human societies for 5,000 years, that is bringing us to the brink of a potentially terminal crisis comes from a story that cries out for revision...
David Korten in his book; The Great Turning asks this question; “By what name will future generations know our time? Will they speak in anger and frustration of the time of the Great Unraveling, when profligate consumption exceeded Earth’s capacity to sustain and led to an accelerating wave of collapsing environmental systems, violent competition for what remained of the planet’s resources, and a dramatic dieback of the human population? Or will they look back in joyful celebration on the time of the Great Turning, when their forebears embraced the higher-order potential of their human nature, turned crisis into opportunity, and learned to live in creative partnership with one another and Earth?”
The UU Rev. Cecilia Kingman Miller said in a recent sermon; “The Great Turning reminds us that all injustices are interwoven—we have lived for 5000 years in a worldview that is patriarchal and supremacist. A worldview that tells us the world exists so that we can extract and exploit it for our own pleasure and ease. That tells us violence is the ultimate answer to conflict, and the powerful have rightful authority over those without power.”
She goes on... “...a great possibility stands before us. [The]... work of social change is more than just an ecological movement. It is more than an anti-war or anti-imperial movement. It is more than just a feminist or anti-racist movement. It is beyond political parties or economic systems. It... transcends all these things.”
At this time, more than at any other time, let us not shrink from the radical, revolutionary, transformative message that UUism offers.... an alternative to the politics, the economics, and the religious institutions that have dominated our world the past 5,000 years. If this is a sea change, we need a boat!
We have a liberating message that is powerful, wise and mature. It is not just a UU message.
We are blessed to have each other and so many allies...who believe in the same vision that we do.
It is time find our allies, those who already know that more consumption, more hate, more lies will not fix this mess. Who know that this present mess is about way more than the last eight years; it is about the last 5,000 years!
It is ok to be afraid and uncertain.
It is not ok to shrink in spirit. We who are blessed with a vision of what could be are not alone.
I read recently that “83% of Americans believe that as a society the US is focused on the wrong priorities. Supermajorities want to see a greater priority given to children, family, community and a healthy environment. Americans also want a world that puts people ahead of profits, spiritual values ahead of financial values, and international cooperation ahead of international domination. ...values...widely shared by both conservatives and liberals.”
So many are hungry for what we already know. This is the time to grow in spirit, to know we are blessed for the transformation of society.
Closing Words from Do Not Lose Heart, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes;
"One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires ... causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these — to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both — are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do."
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